Baseball America's Braves Top 10

by msneezie31 on Jan 2, 2007 11:53 AM EST Comment 34 comments

Jarrod Saltalamacchia, c
Elvis Andrus, ss
Matt Harrison, lhp
Brandon Jones, of
Van Pope, 3b
Eric Campbell, 3b
Scott Thorman, 1b/of
Jo-Jo Reyes, lhp
Joey Devine, rhp
Yunel Escobar, inf

I really thought that Eric Campbell would be higher than he was, especially having Van Pope ahead of him. Anyone else see any eye openers on this list??

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2010 lineups

The feature also includes the 2010 lineups. Usually when challenged on these in the chats the BA writer backs down and states they're mostly just a toy rather than something they stand behind.

But Chuck James at #5 behind Davies, Harrison and Jo Jo seems questionable to me. I'm not even sure Hudson's got enough in the tank left to be ahead of James in 2010.

by natsfan2005 on Jan 2, 2007 12:09 PM EST reply actions

subject

Why is this shocking? Has BA ever been a big James fan?

by Josh on Jan 2, 2007 12:46 PM EST up reply actions

Pope

Really seems high to me. Also, interesting that Escobar barely makes the top 10 after people were calling him a top 50 guy a couple weeks ago.

by Brickhaus on Jan 2, 2007 12:09 PM EST reply actions

Pope

Not me. I still can't believe John left Pope off his top 20 braves prospects list.

I think people tend to undervalue Pope because of his age - he turns 23 next month and still hasn't played above class A Advanced. He's still relatively new to hitting full-time, however, so I don't think he can be looked at as a typical 22/23-year-old prospect. His within-season development has been pretty remarkable over the past two years - everything from pitch recognition to power, etc. is improving with experience. He's looking more and more like a future solid big league third baseman - maybe a Mike Lowell-caliber hitter and fielder.

by FI on Jan 2, 2007 1:09 PM EST up reply actions

Me too

I like Campbell's bat and speed combination, but I rarely see him on a top 50 or 100 prospect list.
Salty at #1?? Which year was a fluke '05 or '06?
Andrus or Jones should top the list.

by ByANose on Jan 2, 2007 12:12 PM EST reply actions

To be fair

He was great in July (.357/.509/.810) and August (.313/.425/.438). So the question should be, is the fluke his 2005 and second half of 2006 or his first half of 2006? Also, injured wrists are never good for hitting.

Considering that what came last was a return to his previous quality and that he backed that up with a little domination in the AFL, (plus the fact that he was so bad during his bad streak) it's probably May and June of 2006 that is the aberration.

by Brett Perryman on Jan 2, 2007 1:38 PM EST up reply actions

Also

to illustrate how easy it is to have your opinion change if you go just by stats, if we add his six game AFL stint, Salty's numbers go from:

.230/.353/.380

.253/.366/.423

And his BB/SO is 60/73.

by Brett Perryman on Jan 2, 2007 2:22 PM EST up reply actions

Depends on what stats you use...

The problem with Salty's 2006 really boils down to singles.

38% XBH, 9 PAs/BB, 5.2 PAs/K
39% XBH, 6.7 PAs/BB, 5.2 PAs/K

I see he had just about the same success, in terms of XBH and actually increased his walk rate. The main problem is that his overall stats suffered because he hit far fewer singles, hitting 230 v 313 will really make your OPS tank, even if you're having an OK season by all other measures.

Personally, a significant drop in BA is only a concern if your K rate jumps. His held steady.

So given scouts still like him, I figure his aparently bad looking season could be more chalked up to bad luck.

by beastball on Jan 2, 2007 3:06 PM EST up reply actions

yeah

i took salty really high in a prospect draft last year, and so spent most of the first half trying to figure out what his deal was.

his numbers were terrible. his hitting was so bad it was almost pitching. and yet... no one could say why. he didn't smell like somebody who couldn't hack AA. going into the year he sounded like one of the most polished hitting prospects around, and nothing was contradicting that, except for the total absence of positive results. he wasn't striking out all the time. he was still walking. there were no scouting reports on some hole in his game that had been exposed by advanced pitchers, like if everybody was killing him with breaking balls or inside fastballs or some single thing you could point to. he just wasn't getting hits.

then he goes on the DL with the wrist injury, and i'm like "oh". that would explain it, if he had weakness in the wrist, so he was still getting the bat on the ball but just wasn't hitting it with the same authority. that plus some bad luck, maybe - since not even his LD/GB/FB percentages looked that out of whack, if i recall correctly.

so i'm still pretty confident in him.

by wily mo on Jan 2, 2007 4:06 PM EST up reply actions

of course

now the BA top 10 report says he had some back-side collapse in his swing last year. but that sounds like a fairly correctable thing.

by wily mo on Jan 2, 2007 4:20 PM EST up reply actions

Your argument doesn't work

It doesn't boil down to singles, it boils down to hits overall. If he had the same XBH%, then he also had the same singles percentage. If his XBH/100 PA number had stayed the same, then your argument would have worked. In any case, he hit far fewer of everything, not just singles, which is pretty evident by looking at the raw numbers.

by Brickhaus on Jan 2, 2007 4:12 PM EST up reply actions

You know, that sounds reasonable...

As you probably could tell, I've been kicking around different hitter ratios to see which ones stick, which is why I'm into checking people's comps from different diaries to see what sticks.

So far %XBH was working well for me, in addition to PAs/BB and PAs/K, but now I'm wondering if PAs/XBH might be more useful. So far, %XBH would reveals that guys like Burroughs and Reed were not as good as their numbers would lead you to believe.

Hmmm...I'm going to have to look a little closer at that.

by beastball on Jan 2, 2007 4:25 PM EST up reply actions

Awesome...

Thanks! I think PAs/XBH is definitly the way to go. Guys like Gordon are at like 8 PAs/XBH, someone like Ellsbury is like at 16, and Reed was around 12 or something. Sweeney is at 12 also.

I was getting some results that just didn't seem right to me with just a straight %XBH, which is why I was jumping into any thread that was comparing numbers. So now I'll try to better battle test PAs/XBH, which I think will be a better measure based off your rationale.

by beastball on Jan 2, 2007 4:30 PM EST up reply actions

Yeah

I don't see it as a luck issue, at least not entirely. I suspect that he lost focus on his offense and didn't exactly know how to get out of his first real slump. For a talented hitter who is not focusing or not locked in or whatever, it's pretty easy for me to imagine his plate control staying about the same but just not making good contact for a while. Hopefully as he improves defensively, he won't be subject to that sort of thing as much.

by Brett Perryman on Jan 2, 2007 5:29 PM EST up reply actions

Actually...

after looking at it closer, %XBH still does what I want it to do, which is be a data point that helps weed out singles inflated stats, and helps to indicate that a slumping star isn't as bad as his surface numbers may indicate. I want to avoid picking up a Reed or Burroughs, as well as, dropping a Salty, who I think is still a legit prospect.

What you are right about is that I was wrong in saying this was a singles issue, which it wasn't. His season was clearly off, but his ratios show that it wasn't as weak as it appears on the surface.

What it shows was that when Salty got a hit, he did it with authority. And his overall stats showed that he was hitting it with less regularity, although since his strikeout rate didn't spike, then it's probable that he wasn't overmatched by the pitchers he was facing.

I tried playing with PAs/XBH, which didn't work, since Reed still ranked up with good prospects. I've tried XBH/AB, and XBH/Singles, and nothing clears the air like %XBH.

I should mention, it was just a single data point that needs to be taken into consideration with walk rate, strikeout rate, overall performance, and scouting reports. But if you looked at all that information then you wouldn't get Reed, and would've kept Salty.

Anyway, your logic makes some sense to me, but I just haven't found a way to have that bear out in the numbers.

What I need to do is find a former prospect, who had solid numbers across the board, then slumped for the remained of their career, and see what the %XBH bears out.

by beastball on Jan 2, 2007 7:08 PM EST up reply actions

Huh?

Should the fact that the Arizona Fall League is a hitters fall baseball dream?

by SenorGato88 on Jan 2, 2007 3:20 PM EST up reply actions

Brandon Jones

Love this guy-i took him in a deep fantasy draft when he came out of JUCO- i like his 5 tool potential. Great to see him climb to #4...could be a fantastic replacement for Andruw Jones by 2008

by gashousegang on Jan 2, 2007 12:22 PM EST reply actions

Cody Johnson

I know he hasn't had a breakout performance yet, but IMO it's surprising that BA didn't even put him in the top 10.

by eazyb81 on Jan 2, 2007 12:57 PM EST reply actions

color me unsurprised

how can you in right mind put him ahead of escobar at this point? i love his power, but his bust potential is so high that it outweighs his ceiling

by abravesfan on Jan 2, 2007 1:00 PM EST up reply actions

We're talking BA here

It's just not a BA list if they haven't radically overprojected some recent draft pick/signee who's four years away from the big leagues and hasn't proven he can hit in A-ball yet.

by Mac Thomason on Jan 2, 2007 2:08 PM EST up reply actions

Huh?

Andrus is the only guy on the top ten that they've done that with, and they have plenty of company. Sickels rated him #2 as well. Johnson, their first rounder, didn't even make the list.

by Brett Perryman on Jan 2, 2007 2:18 PM EST up reply actions

He's talking in generalities

not necessarily about this particular list. My original comment was due primarily because this is a BA list, and they love to pump up kids with potential. I fully expected to see Johnson in their top 10 because of this.

by eazyb81 on Jan 2, 2007 2:25 PM EST up reply actions

Well

I do like BA, but I think you're setting up a straw man here.

by Brett Perryman on Jan 2, 2007 2:30 PM EST up reply actions

What Easy B said

Although BA has been better in recent years, they used to just criminally overproject very young players, especially pitchers. Apparently their philosophy was that a one percent chance that a player might be a star was better than a fifty percent chance that a player would be a regular.

by Mac Thomason on Jan 2, 2007 2:48 PM EST up reply actions

I think that you are correct

to put that in the past tense. At one point in the 90's I took a lot of what they said with a grain of salt. For instance I remember often reading sensationalistic stuff on FBs, and it seemed like most decent pitching prospects had top of the rotation potential. But somewhere in there that changed and they're in line with everyone else in downgrading guys who can't take a walk (for the most part) or can't command their fastball/don't have the makings of secondary pitches, and don't overproject guys who don't have present tools nearly as much. I think that guys who haven't read BA in the last 3-5 years would be surprised.

by Brett Perryman on Jan 2, 2007 3:02 PM EST up reply actions

not even 15

A comment in the chat implies Johnson isn't even in the top 15 among Braves prospects.

He's got great strength, but there are serious questions about his bat and a whole lot of things need to happen before he warrants mention as a future major leaguer.

by FI on Jan 2, 2007 2:37 PM EST up reply actions

Alot of anti BA comments

Remember guys BA tops 10s are written by a single writed assigned to that list... so it represents one mans opinion of that franchsie.. Their top 100 list i believe is mostly poll results of each writers individual top 50, if you get their book, they tend to differ quite a lot.

But the advatage i believe BA has is they have a whole team of scouts focusing on a smaller population.. So where John is busting his butt to see all (or many of these players in person) BA has people who get to see these guys many times. So you get a little more detail. I think the critisim of BA being too toolsy oriented is a bit unjustified, but I understand it. I think in general people get more excited about tools then actual results.

"You also must admit, that outside of the facts, I made a compelling argument!"

by jbluestone on Jan 2, 2007 2:29 PM EST reply actions

Also

because of who they are, they are granted access to people within the organizations. A good amount of their rankings are based on those conversations. Now, I know of cases with, for example, the Rangers where either the writer wasn't buying what they said or didn't talk to the right person (Edinson Volquez in spring of 2005 for example) and didn't identify who the organization really liked. But just generally speaking they have more access and put a higher emphasis on talking to people in the industry than most others. That's something that I'm willing to pay for as a consumer.

by Brett Perryman on Jan 2, 2007 2:34 PM EST up reply actions

+1

With in-depth stats widely available all over the internet for free I can evaluate the numbers myself. It's the scouting reports and inside knowledge that BA offers that is hard to beat. I've said it dozens of time before, BA is the best money I spend on anything all year.

by natsfan2005 on Jan 2, 2007 2:46 PM EST up reply actions

What I like about BA

Is they do not seem to get emotional about a player... what i like about john is he DOES get emotional about a player... i love that i can go read the scouting reports from BA and get a kind of dry scout lingo anaylsis, and then i can pick up my Sickels prospect book and read his comments which tend to give it more life ... and that allows me to make a fairly informed decision... by the way Deric at HQ is very good and his book Minor League Baseball Analyst takes a very nice sabermetric apporach in addition to his scouting for players. Also kevin goldstein (formerly of BA, has some nice stuff going on at BP).

"You also must admit, that outside of the facts, I made a compelling argument!"

by jbluestone on Jan 2, 2007 3:12 PM EST up reply actions

Campbell

Little surprised here. If he can stick at 2b, I think he is one step away from becoming the best 2b prospect in baseball which should significantly increase his value.

I ate a Grand Slam @ Denny's yesterday... pooped out a 2 run double today.

by slurve on Jan 2, 2007 8:29 PM EST reply actions

Attitude Issues

Supposedly the Braves were majorly disappointed with his attitude during the HWL, and sent him packing early. That might be the reason he dropped.

Also, he still has K-rate issues

by Godot on Jan 3, 2007 5:55 AM EST up reply actions

bell

I think I've read that somewhere before, but it didn't come up in the top 10 report or follow-up chat. They mentioned that his defense was a work-in-progress and that there are some potential problems with his swing.

I think some people are making too much of Campbell being behind Pope. Ballew says they're about equal in terms of value, but he put Pope ahead because he's a little more "polished" all-around. That sounds reasonable to me.

by FI on Jan 3, 2007 8:37 AM EST up reply actions